More Harry & the Pirate I

First of all, this won’t make much sense if you haven’t read that multi-chapter story of mine, Harry & the Pirate, and will be somewhat spoilerish for you if you were planning to do so at some future point. A number of people have read it, of course, and this is for them...

( Wherein follows a lengthy explanation )

ETA: OMG, I can't believe I forgot to thank my kind beta readers, tessabeth, the_stowaway, and honorat from whom I received many useful suggestions, and particularly the ever-patient hereswith, who must have gone over this four different times as I kept tweaking and tweaking.